Leadfinger - Silver & Black (Golden Robot Records, 2022) English version
Silver & Black is Leadfinger's sixth album, and it's a record that marks in an amazing way the rebirth of one of the best bands of Aussie-rock, which seriously risked to see its run ended, after Stewart Cunningham had to face a long fight against lung cancer, diagnosed in 2017 and that forced him to two long years of treatment marked by a slow and uncertain recovery. After this terrible period, the band (composed in addition to Cunningham, by Michael Boyle, Dillon Hicks and Adam Screen) has tried to resume the thread of the discourse interrupted by "Friday Night Heroes" among the many difficulties that have arisen with the pandemic of Covid-19 and the consequent long lockdown.
But as soon as the four were able to enter the Rancom Street Studios in Botany, NSW with producer Brent Clark to give body to the nine songs (12 in the double vinyl version) that make up "Silver & Black", the magic was recreated and is now available to all.The album tells in a cathartic way the disease experienced by Cunningham, in every phase: from the painful discovery that clouded his future, from the desire not to give up, until the final victory that allows him to return to cultivate the love for rock'n'roll in a full as it was thought could never happen again.
That's how each song takes us inside a painful story but overcome with stubbornness not to come out defeated, as told by the opening track "Dodged A Bullet" a song from the classic rock in the style of the best Tom Petty, which speaks of the discovery of the disease as an insurmountable obstacle, which empties you of energy, leads you to lose and find friends with life that seems to slip from your hands until you can not "dodge the bullet".
The following "One More Day" brings us back to the classic tones of the "Leadfinger sound", with the band pushing on the accelerator again with a guitar riff that opens up scenarios of rebirth to be grafted onto a text in which the protagonist absolutely does not want to surrender to what fate seems to have in store for him.
The power-pop of "Sleeping Dog", one of the three digital singles that have anticipated the release of the album, continues to exorcise the disease by inviting not to look back and continue to move and stay alive.
The following "You Oughta Know" tells again, interweaving melodious guitar riffs and a chorus to sing at the top of your lungs, the beauty of writing songs and playing in a band that has no intention (fortunately for us) to give up.
After this first phase full of adrenaline the sound turns to mid-tempo ballads with the magnificent and painful "Find The Words" in which our protagonist must tell his loved one the bad news that is coming. A preparatory song that opens the way to the masterpiece of the disc, but I dare say of all the songwriting of Stewart Cunningham: "Fall Of Rome". A wonderful song both from the musical point of view where Michael Boyle chisels guitar solos sometimes pushed and sometimes in crescendo, supported by the dialogue with that of Cunningham and the solid bass line of Adam "Reggie" Screen and the substantial support of the drums of Dillon Hicks. Bano speaks of a dream in which its author compares the beauty of the glory of Rome, which continues to live on through the centuries even through the magnificence of its archaeological evidence, with a love that will pass over the ruins of his life to continue to live forever.
Right after these two magnificent ballads Leadfinger place two killer tracks like "Nobody Knows" and "Stop Running Away" two real jewels of the most catchy power pop. "Nobody Knows" talks about a comeback and the search for new roads to travel unknown to all, while "Stop Running Away" is another of the highest peaks of this spectacular album, one of those songs destined to become irreplaceable in concerts to conquer any kind of audience.
The album closes in beauty with another evocative ballad. "Here come the Bats" is another of the pearls of this album with its intertwining of guitars and bass lines that chase each other in the foreground to create enveloping melodic lines on which the words sung by Cunningham are grafted: "To these words that I sing from my soul/Signify something/To the world outside these doors/And mean what they say/When will they mean something to us all?" A truly superlative final coda.
"Silver&Black" is all that, it is the masterpiece of Leadfinger's discography, it is a masterpiece of the modern era of Australian rock.
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